NEWS FROM
LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF

December 14, 2001

For more information contact Jonathan Frerichs at (410) 230-2802.

In this news release:

1. Afghan Aid Faces Same Challenges With Some New Success; LWR Triples Assistance

2. Keeping 1,000 Children in School One Grandmother at a Time

AFGHAN AID FACES SAME CHALLENGES WITH SOME NEW SUCCESS; LWR TRIPLES ASSISTANCE

Baltimore, December 14, 2001 -- While the hunt for the lone figure of Osama Bin Laden absorbs world media attention, reaching multitudes of cold and hungry people deep within Afghanistan preoccupies aid efforts. Snowy mountains and isolated valleys still hide the fate of hundreds of thousands, though recent field reports indicate modest successes where security conditions, road access and weather permits.

In this context Lutheran World Relief is tripling its efforts, measured in dollar terms, in order to address three needs with partner organizations: help aid reach northern Afghanistan in the most direct manner, from Uzbekistan; assist refugees and displaced people coping with winter cold in camps on the Iranian border and in Pakistan; strengthen an aid program reaching isolated communities via Afghan aid groups.

"Improving but slowly" is how one local aid official summarized relief activity this week in western Afghanistan and along its border with Iran. The official, with the Iranian Red Crescent Society, has sent five consignments to communities in Afghanistan but expects refugee camp programs along the border to continue until next spring. His agency will soon be providing these camps and others with more than 8,000 quilts from U.S. Lutheran parishes.

"Difficult" security and communication, notes an aid worker with LWR partner Norwegian Church Aid, in Pakistan. In a trend that will hopefully continue, however, affiliated local groups have reached 8,600 families with aid in recent weeks including high energy biscuits to 600 malnourished children in Kabul and are now planning to supply monthly packages of rice, beans, sugar and ghee to 21,400 more families.

Three months after September 11 the humanitarian imperative is still to reach people where they live, if possible, or help them through the coming months in camps. In recent weeks, insecurity has replaced warfare as a threat to aid operations, and winter cold is making malnourished people more vulnerable to disease.

Refugees facing winter in Pakistan will receive 19,000 quilts from Lutheran World Relief in January, thanks to a cooperative effort with the American Friends Service Committee. There are about two million Afghan refugees in Pakistan. A recent United Nations survey identified nearly 5,000 unregistered new refugee families there.

A seven-year-old girl in one border camp described life for many of the new refugees on Afghanistan's borders. "Our village was very nice and we lived peacefully," she told an aid worker this week, "until the war started and the village was bombed and we lost everything. It is safe here but not a good life."

The increased aid for the Afghanistan crisis from LWR totals $519,000 in value. More assistance is in progress, including a $250,000 cargo of layettes slated for a mercy flight to Kabul in mid-January.

LWR continues to request financial donations to support further activity. The Baltimore-based agency is a member of the international emergency alliance ACT and works on behalf of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Read the current LWR Afghanistan Fact Sheet.

Contribution information.

 

KEEPING 1,000 CHILDREN IN SCHOOL ONE GRANDMOTHER AT A TIME

(By Cathie DeGonia, communication coordinator for Stand With Africa.)

In the Luweero District of Uganda, many hands working together help keep over 1,000 AIDS orphans in school. Seventeen parish orphan committees, scores of family members and a Lutheran World Relief partner, AMREF, cooperate in an orphan support program that provides access to primary, secondary and vocational schools and assists those who care for the orphans, their guardians.

Florence Lwango is one such guardian. Florence lives with the affects of HIV/AIDS each day. Her two sons died of the disease. Now she is left to care for eight orphans ranging in age from three to 14 years. Florence is their grandmother.

For this HIV/AIDS affected family, the LWR partnership translates into certain specifics at home and at school.

Several of Florence's grandchildren are attending primary school. Their school fees are paid, but they must pay for their own uniforms and items like desks and other materials not covered by school fees.

The project funded the purchase of a bull that Florence fattened and sold. With the money she got from the bull, she bought a dairy cow. She now has a source of milk for her family and some to sell. She has money to pay for the school items needed by her grandchildren.

Florence also grows coffee with coffee beans she received from the AMREF project, but the harvested price is low-only about 30 cents a pound. She thinks that her entire crop may bring in little, but it still helps.

Serving this family and others like it, this LWR project in Uganda is one example of how the Stand With Africa campaign is helping to care for people affected by the AIDS pandemic. Stand With Africa is a campaign of Lutheran World Relief and local Lutheran churches in the U.S. supporting African churches and communities as they withstand AIDS, banish hunger and build peace.